Berenda Slough by Philip Levine
Earth and water without form, change, or pause: as if the third day had not come, this calm norm of chaos denies the Word.
One sees only a surface pocked with rushes, the starved clumps pressed between water and space -- rootless, perennial stumps
fixed in position, entombed in nothing; it is too late to bring forth branches, to bloom or die, only the long wait
lies ahead, a parody of perfection. Who denies this is creation, this sea constant before the stunned eye's
insatiable gaze, shall find nothing he can comprehend. Here the mind beholds the mind as it shall be in the end.
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